Stolen Memories
by Muggle Jane
Summary: Bill and Hermione are on a routine curse-breaking job when something goes horribly wrong and tears apart their lives. M for language and adult situations
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: I don't own any of the canon characters or situations and I don't intend to make any money from this.**

I blew a strand of brown hair out of my face for what seemed like the hundredth time since we'd started that morning. I'd put it back in a long plait, but my hair was very stubborn and insisted on escaping at every opportunity.

"There!" Bill exclaimed in triumph, holding the diamond he'd been working on for the past little while up so it caught the torchlight. "It's the ring." He held it out to me and I took it. It was, in fact, a ring. The diamond was large and still somewhat rough and was attached to a thin gold band.

"They'll be happy with this," I murmured, shifting it slightly in the palm of my hand to admire it before closing my fingers around it. "Is there supposed to be anything else in here?"

We were in a small tomb in the middle of Wales. It wasn't an ancient tomb or anything like that; apparently it was the ancestral crypt of a family of Death Eaters, and after some local Muggle teenagers had vandalized it, people had started turning up cursed. So Bill had been borrowed from Gringotts, and I'd volunteered to be the Ministry liaison- even though it technically wasn't my department.

"Yes," he replied, scanning the pile of rubble in front of us. "There's supposed to be a sword in here. Just my luck, it'll be at the bottom of all of this. Let's have a bit of a look around before we tackle that."

I nodded. We'd found the ring in a small recess in the wall obviously meant to hold family treasures. In addition to causing boils to whoever touched it, it had also been fastened in there with a sticking charm. We'd been prepared to chisel it out if we had to, but Bill had apparently been able to free it from its invisible prison.

There were lit torches lining the walls, enough for decent visibility, but I still cast a light spell with my wand, mostly to see if it would reflect anything. There was nothing. The bodies of the deceased were still sealed in their heavy stone coffins and the Muggles who'd drifted in here had activated the sword's curse, which meant that it was somewhere out here and not closed up with the bodies. "I don't see anything."

"Me neither." The tip of his wand was glowing as well, as he peered around. "I reckon we better start taking that apart then." He'd come to stand in front of the pile of rubble again, and was frowning down at it.

"That's what I'm here for, isn't it?" I asked, pointing my wand at the debris. Ostensibly, I was there to babysit, because the Gringotts goblins didn't have any specific loyalty to the Ministry. Practically, I'd offered Bill a hand in an assistant capacity, because he didn't need a babysitter.

"Just hang on, 'Mione," he said, using the affectionate nickname most of his family had assigned to me. "What was it, the boils and what other curse?"

"Memory," I replied absently, scanning the pile of rubble to see how it all fit together. It was made up of cobblestones from the floor and large tiles from the ceiling, as well as the odd rock and clump of dirt.

"Right." He circled the pile and came back to stand beside me. "Can't see a bit of it. Start lifting them off, from the top like. Just, you know, carefully."

"Of course, carefully," I retorted, pointing my wand at the topmost piece of tile and levitating it off. "I may not be a fancy curse-breaker like you, but I'd like to think I know what I'm doing."

He looked at me and I could see the wolfish grin spreading across his face. "And here I thought we could go all day without you snapping at me once." There was a teasing lilt to his voice. "George wanted me to bet on it. Good thing I didn't."

I didn't reply, just lifted more bits of tile carefully off the pile. Like most of his younger brothers, he seemed to enjoy getting a rise out of me.

Even going slowly, we quickly came to the end of the pieces that were loose on top, and could be moved without disturbing anything else.

"Wait a minute," he said, his eyebrows lowering into a frown as he peered at the pile. He made another slow circle of it and paused about two-thirds of the way around. "There," he said, pointing into the debris.

I stepped carefully around to where he was and followed the line of his pointing finger to a gleam of silvery metal. "I see it," I said. "Now how do we get it out without disturbing it?"

"Very carefully. Let me think a moment." He crouched down in front of the rubble and pulled a piece of cobblestone out with his hand. "I think we can just clear off the hilt and slide it out."

I sank down beside him, carefully studying the intersection of the pieces of debris. "Ok, I see it. Here." I wordlessly cast the light spell so that the tip of my wand glowed, and held it out to shine a better light in front of us.

"Brilliant. Let me do this bit, I don't want you accidentally coming into contact with it." He started delicately picking out other bits of tile and cobblestone until the hilt was laid bare. "I'm going to have to pull it out before I can work on it."

"But won't you be cursed?"

"Gloves." He was wearing a pair of enchanted leather gloves, goblin-crafted from what he'd told me, and capable of protecting him from coming into contact with even the most powerful curses. "If I ask you why there's a very proper brunette picking through the dust with me, though, you might want to get me to St. Mungo's." He flashed a grin to show he was teasing and very carefully placed his hand over the hilt. "It's inert anyway." His hand closed over it and he started to ease back, gently pulling. After just a moment, irritation flashed over his face. "Give me your wand, I need your hands in here."

I looked askance at him. "What?"

"It won't come free. I need more hands, and yours are smaller than mine. If I do it, I might disturb this lot." He gestured to the pile of debris and then held out his hand.

After a moment, I passed him my wand. I made to set the ring on the floor and was interrupted by a very pointedly cleared throat. "What?"

"We get that sword out of there, there's a good chance everything is going to shift anyway. Do you really want to be looking for the ring in all of that?"

I narrowed my eyes at him. "So what do I do with it, then?"

He looked at me, seeming to concentrate on what I was wearing. "No pockets that seal? Just put it on your finger, it's just for a minute."

"On my finger?" I echoed dubiously.

"Well, I don't want to lose it," he replied in his usual good-natured tone. "But if you'd rather spend the rest of the week sifting through this shite, I'll let Ron know you won't be back for a couple of days."

"What about your pockets?"

"Not exactly easy to get to while I'm all crouched over like this, and I don't want to take my hand off of this."

"Fine." I rolled my eyes at him but did as he said anyway, sliding the embarrassingly large diamond ring on my finger.

"Good. Now come over here and give me a hand."

I knelt down and leaned forward, peering at the silver hilt. Bill was still holding the sword. "What do you need me to do, pull more of this off of it?"

"Grab it there, just on the hilt, help me pull."

"Is there enough room?" I asked, eying the hilt dubiously. His own gloved hand was taking up most of the available space.

"You've got small hands," he repeated.

"What about the curse? I don't suppose you have an extra set of gloves, do you?"

"I seem to remember mentioning it was inert." His tone made my roll my eyes again. "I saw that, Hermione, just grab the fucking sword."

I sighed and refrained from commenting on his language. "I can't reach it from here."

"So... move?" as though it was the most obvious solution in the world. "Long arms, 'Mione, you'll fit here just in front of me."

Still, I hesitated. He was still crouching, his knees spread apart so that I could fit between them. It seemed a little intimate of a position to be in with the married brother of my boyfriend. "Fine. Just... Don't tell Ron."

He grinned. "Tell my youngest brother that I had his pretty girlfriend between my legs?"

I narrowed my eyes at him. "Exactly. You know how he gets."

"It's work, Hermione. Would it help if I told you I've been in more compromising positions with Rod?" Rod was his normal partner at Gringotts, where they were working to clear out the vaults of dead and imprisoned Death Eaters.

I sighed again and stood, my knees cracking in protest. I walked over in front of him and knelt down between his knees, my back pressed up against his chest. His other arm came around in front of me to hold the wand so we could both see what we were doing, and I knew my cheeks were bright red.

"Besides, he won't do anything to me. Benefits of being the oldest. You know I'm going to have to rib him about this."

I rolled my eyes. "If he takes a tone with me, I'm going to tell him to go and sleep on your sofa."

I could feel his body shaking as he chuckled. "I'll tell Fleur to have the guest linens ready."

I slipped my hands onto the small glimpses of silvery metal visible around the dark leather of his glove. There wasn't a lot of room and my hands ended up overlapping his.

"And now we're holding hands?" he teased.

I snatched my limbs back and I would have moved away from him, but I was basically trapped by his outstretched arms and his lean body behind me. "Bill!" I snapped.

He chuckled again. "You know, you are even more fun to wind up than Ron is."

"If I had my wand, I would hex you right now." I was mostly joking, and he knew it. "How does Fleur even put up with you?"

"I'm extremely dashing and charming, of course. And why do you think I waited until I had it?" He nudged my shoulder with his upper arm. "Alright, I'll count off and then we pull this, I de-curse it, and we apparate back to the Ministry. Fleur's cooking a roast dinner tonight if you want to join us."

"Yorkshire pudding?" I asked hopefully.

"Can you have a roast dinner without it? Mum shared her recipe."

"That would be lovely, thank you. Ron might not even care what you say if he gets to have a roast dinner." I closed my hands over the sword again.

"Ready? Slow and steady, right?" At my nod, he started counting down. "Three, two, one, pull." I gradually leaned my weight back, and I felt Bill do the same.

Suddenly, something shifted, and we were airborne. Then, everything went dark.


	2. Chapter 2

I lifted my head and looked around, confused. Where was I? It was dark, almost too dark to see, and the floor was covered in strange shadowy shapes.

I very suddenly became aware that I wasn't alone, when the thing I was laying on shifted and groaned. That was definitely a masculine groan; I was lying on some strange man. I sprang to my feet and held my wand out in front of me.

"Who are you?" I demanded, doing my very best to ignore the quiver in my voice.

"Who the fuck are you?" he shot back, and even in the dark I could see that he was pointing his wand at me.

I opened my mouth to answer him, but nothing came out. The information was just... missing. I had a name, I had to, but...

I took a deep breath and wordlessly cast the light charm. The first thing I noticed about the man sitting on the floor was his long red hair that had half-escaped a ponytail. The second thing I noticed were the scars cutting across what had probably once been a handsome face.

"You're bleeding," I noticed next with some concern. There was a slice through the sleeve on his upper arm, the edges of the fabric increasingly dark.

He followed the direction of my pointing finger and looked down at his arm and frowned, his eyebrows drawing down. "Well, that's no good." The end of his own wand glowed and he peered at his injury.

"Take your arm out of your sleeve and I'll see if I can do anything for you." I knew healing charms. How was it I knew healing charms and not my own name?

He stared at me for a moment. "How do I know you're not just going to cut me up some more?" he asked suspiciously.

I rolled my eyes. "Don't, then. Bleed to death and when I get out of here, I'll tell whoever I find that you died because you're a stubborn git."

To my surprise he chuckled and pulled his arm out of his sleeve, before extending it to me under the hem of his shirt. I stepped forward and crouched down beside him to peer at the seeping wound.

"Well, it doesn't look too deep," I observed.

"Stings a fair bit." He paused and his eyes flickered up to my face. "You going to do something about it, or are you just going to sit there and watch me bleed?"

I glared at him for a moment and then pointed my wand at it, and wordlessly cast the charm to close it.

He bent and straightened his elbow a couple of times. "Thank you..." he trailed off, obviously expecting me to supply my name.

"I... Don't know," I admitted after a moment.

He stared at me for a moment before shrugging his arm back into its sleeve. He lowered his wand, letting his hand rest on his thigh. "Me neither. What's that?" he gestured with his free hand towards my waist, and I looked down to find what he was pointing at.

"A badge. Identification?" I lowered myself to sit on the hard dirt floor and unclipped the badge. "Hermione Granger. Is that what I look like?"

He held out his hand, and squinted at the picture on the badge when I handed it to him. "Pretty much," he told me, passing it back. As soon as I took it, he rid himself of the leather gloves he was wearing and fished inside the pockets of his trousers until he pulled out his own badge. "William Weasley. Well, I look like I was in the losing end of a fight, don't I?" he asked, squinting in the dim light at his picture.

"Hi, William Weasley." I held out my free hand to him, and he dropped his badge on his knee so he could take it and shake.

He let out a low whistle. "That is some rock," he said, turning my hand over until something winked in the light. It was an ostentatiously large diamond, perched precariously on a thin band of gold. At about the same time, we both noticed the simple band of gold around his own finger. "Are we... married?"

"We don't have the same last name," I replied primly, snatching my hand back.

"You were very much on top of me," he reminded me, and I pressed my lips together. "I don't know, Hermione Granger, you seem awfully familiar."

"You do too," I admitted, staring at the ring on my finger. "I don't remember... anything. I don't know who I am, I don't know who you are, I don't know where we are..." I trailed off, realizing I was very close to tears.

"Hey," he said soothingly, and reached out to pat my leg. "We'll figure this out. Let's have a look around, all right?" He pocketed his badge and got to his feet, offering me his hand. He was very tall, I noticed as he helped me stand. There was something in my mind about a tall, lean redhead that seemed just out of reach, and if I could just get a little bit closer to it...

No luck. I made my wand glow with light again, and together we looked around us.

We were in some sort of cave. There were rocks and discarded building supplies all over the place. And there, to one side, was an ornate silver-colored sword. He let out another low whistle when he saw it. "I wonder if that belongs in the 'Gringotts Wizarding Bank.'" He saw me staring in question at him and shrugged. "That's what it says on my identification. Neither you nor I look like the type of people who would normally carry a sword around. Maybe we're some sort of recovery team."

I frowned and shook my head. "Mine says, 'Ministry of Magic.' Law Division. Maybe it's a magical artifact of some sort."

"So why would someone from a bank, and a solicitor from something that sounds an awful lot like a bureaucracy, be in a dark cave together- if not on their honeymoon?"

"How do you know I'm a solicitor?" I demanded. "I could be in law enforcement."

He looked me over and shook his head, a very amused look on his face. "If you're in law enforcement, I'm a green-grocer. There's something entirely too proper about you, Hermione Granger."

I stared at him for a moment, then realized he was teasing me. "Be serious," I told him, a little bit crossly.

"When you come up with a better theory, you let me know." He crossed over to the sword and picked it up, peering at it in the light from his wand. "There's blood on it. Guess we know how I got that cut on my arm."

"Did I do that?" I wondered, worriedly. Why would I try to attack him with a sword? Was he a criminal? He had a lot of scars. But in that case, why wouldn't I use my wand? I couldn't have done that. I trusted him, for some reason. I didn't know him, but somehow I trusted him.

He snorted. "Right. And then you just tossed it over here and threw yourself down on top of me. Tiny thing like you, I'm not even sure you could lift it."

I marched over to him, and when I snatched it from him, my hand brushed against his in a way that seemed familiar. "I seem to be lifting it just fine," I snapped at him, and he chuckled again.

"You are fun to wind up," he informed me with a wolfish grin. "You're so familiar to me."

I sighed. "We should find a way out of here. I wonder what time it is."

He rummaged in his pocket for a moment and pulled out a gold watch. "Eleven."

"In the morning? At night?"

He shrugged and slipped it into his pocket again. "Could be either, I think we're far enough underground that it could be noon outside, and we'd never know. Why don't you hand the sword back, and we can split up and look for a way out?"

"Why?" I asked suspiciously.

"I cede the point, you can lift it. But it's going to get heavy after a while, and I seem to have more muscles than you do."

Was he... Was he flirting with me? Or was he just teasing me again? I narrowed my eyes and handed the sword back. "Fine."

"Yell if you find anything, yeah?"

I nodded. I turned and walked away from him, walking around the rough rock wall of the cave. It was a fairly large cave, large enough that I couldn't see the opposite wall from where I was. I kept glancing around to make sure William was still there. I had no idea who he was, but somehow his presence in the oppressively dark cave made me feel just a little better about being in there.

It was chilly in the cave and I started to shiver in my thin long-sleeved shirt. I reached back and pulled my hair out of the plait it was escaping, using the heavy mass of locks to warm my neck a little. It was all the same. Rough rock walls, dirt floor, occasional piles of rock or building supplies. Without the light from our wands, there had been very limited visibility, but it hadn't been the pitch black that it should have been. I couldn't find the source of that light, either.

"Hermione!" he called. We were starting to walk back towards each other, and he'd stopped and was pointing at the cave wall.

I hurried towards him as fast as I felt it safe to do so, and breathed a sigh of relief when I saw a break in the wall. It was an even break, like a man-made tunnel. "Thank Merlin," I murmured. "I didn't find anything else."

"There could be anything out there," he cautioned me.

I shrugged. "There is absolutely nothing in here," I replied. "And I'm getting hungry."

"And cold," he observed, noting my shivering and chattering teeth with a frown. "Come on, Hermione."

I canceled the light spell, and held the wand in front of me defensively, relying on the light from his. The tunnel was dark, dimly lit at the end. "Night," I observed as we got close enough to see a dark, starry sky.

It was just as cold outside in the night air as it had been in the cave. We took a quick look around. We were in the middle of some sort of woods. The only noises were those of nocturnal animals; there were no lights or anything.

"We should shelter just inside here," he advised. "Build a fire, settle in for the night."

"I'm not particularly tired."

"Nor am I, but you're freezing and I don't want to walk around unfamiliar woods in the middle of the night."

I peered sharply at him. "You're not cold?"

"Somewhat, not as much as you are. Help me get some wood together and we'll build up a fire."

We gathered some fallen branches and leaves from the wood surrounding the mouth of the tunnel, and then I built up a fire while William looked on. "You seem to know what you're doing," he observed.

I nodded, a little frustrated. "This is something I've done enough that it's second nature. Why or when, I couldn't tell you." My hands were shaking with cold by the time I was done, and I stood back to let him light the fire, not able to trust myself not to accidentally hurt either of us.

He eyed me for a moment. "I'm going to suggest something, and you're going to snap at me about it," he observed.

I frowned and looked up at him from where I was crouched beside the fire, seeking its warmth. "What?"

"I'm going to conjure up a chair. I'm going to sit on it. You should sit on me, I'll conjure up a blanket, and then maybe you'll be able to get warm enough to sleep." He sounded patiently amused.

"I don't think so," I snapped.

He grinned at me. "There it is. Look, Hermione, you're freezing. The ground is going to be too cold to sleep on. You could, of course, conjure something for yourself, but you'd either have to pull it close enough to the fire that you're going to set yourself on fire, or you'll be too damn cold to do anything but sit in a ball and shiver all night long. And you'll keep me up," he added as an afterthought, and I rolled my eyes at him.

"Fine," I bit out.

He waved his wand and a wide armchair appeared, looking invitingly soft. He lowered himself into it, and then patted his knee invitingly. I eyed him for a moment before gingerly perching myself on him, as far away from his chest as I could get. "Well, that looks comfortable," he teased before grabbing my arm and pulling me solidly against him. "I don't bite." Another grin.

I shot him a look and tried really hard not to notice the lean muscles I'd glimpsed when he'd pulled his arm out of his shirt for me to heal it. He was someone else's husband, I kept repeating to myself over and over._ Unless he's your husband_, came an unbidden little voice in the back of my head. I conjured a blanket and settled it over us, and then hesitantly rested my head on his shoulder. It didn't take long for me to stop shivering, and despite my protests of not being tired, it didn't take that much longer for me to fall asleep. One of my last coherent thoughts was that he smelled good, like pine needles and fresh snow.

**A/N: Thank you for the reviews! Thank you also to the fantastic CyrusLestrange for wrangling my wayward grammar for me!**


	3. Chapter 3

When I woke up in the morning, my neck was very stiff. The flames had died down during the night, and I was starting to get chilly again, despite the body heat of the man I'd been sleeping on.

William's eyes opened as soon as I lifted my head, seeming instantly alert. Blue, his eyes were blue. "Morning, Hermione Granger," he said quietly, those blue eyes focused on me.

I noticed a sheen of sweat on his forehead. "Are you really that warm?" I asked, peering sharply at him. I became aware that his shirt was clinging damply to him as well.

He nodded. "Between you and the blanket, I'm almost uncomfortable in here. You look cold again, though." He looked a little concerned.

I nodded. "I am. I'll wrap the blanket around me when we start moving."

"Which we may want to, soon. I am hungry enough to eat a whole cow." He flashed me that wolfish grin.

He had a good point. My own stomach was aching in an unpleasantly empty way. I gingerly got up, being careful not to dig my elbows into him as I extricated myself from my perch, and wrapped the blanket around me like it was a cloak. I rolled my neck from side to side, trying to ease the protest in my muscles from spending the night in such an unconventional 'bed.'

He stood as well, turning to banish the chair with a flick of his wand. He was just as tall as he had been the night before. His hair was hanging loosely down his back and-

"Is that an earring?" I asked, staring at what looked like some sort of fang, dangling from his ear.

His hand flew up to touch it. "Apparently so." He sounded amused. "Scarred up and an earring, aren't I just a dashing bloke?"

He was, but I kept my opinion on that to myself. "Modest, too," I said instead, prompting a chuckle from him.

"Something tells me you're modest enough for the both of us." He was teasing me again, and I shot him a look. He stretched then, and I turned away, casting my eyes around the surrounding woods again in order to avoid getting a peak at the muscles hidden under his pale skin as his shirt lifted up. The dense growth of trees looked almost as foreboding as it had the night before.

"There," I said, pointing. A slightly overgrown path was leading down from the entrance to the cave, through the trees. "That looks likely. Do you want me to see if I can scrounge up any sort of edible plants?" I looked around us dubiously. I apparently had a rather extensive knowledge of edible plants and herbs, but some of the fauna here was very different to what I was used to.

"Do I look like a rabbit?" he asked, amused.

I rolled my eyes at him, still looking into the trees. "Well, if you have a better idea..."

"The sooner we get down that path, the sooner we can find somewhere that has actual food. You know- steak, ham, lamb..." he trailed off as he noticed I had turned back to look at him. "What?"

"While I appreciate your _manly_ need for protein," he snorted with amusement, "we don't know how long that path is, or if it even leads to somewhere that will have assorted meats. It might lead down to a road or a deserted town..."

"Or a honeymoon resort," he offered with a cheeky sort of grin.

I folded my arms tightly across my chest and narrowed my eyes, glaring at him. "Why are you so stuck on that?"

"Because it riles you up," he answered easily.

I rolled my eyes and turned away from him again. "I'm going to go and try to find something to eat. You can stay here and tease the fire, or you can come with me and maybe help."

He laughed outright. "You're a bossy one, aren't you?"

He ended up following me into the trees on my search for edible plants, holding the sword easily in one hand. I made sure to stay within eyesight of the path. Everything was green and growing; it was obviously spring. I was able to find a few recognizable plants to eat... enough to dull the hunger at least a little. He made a face at the greens, but he thanked me all the same. We ate as we walked down the path. It obviously had been well-used at some point, but it looked like no one had been along it in several months.

"I seem to have a lot of knowledge," I said after a while. My mind had been working furiously, trying to make sense of the situation. "And you seem reasonably intelligent. So why would two intelligent people be out in the middle of nowhere with only a sword? No food, no tent, just a sword."

"It would have to be a day trip," he replied. "Which means someone is expecting us back."

"The day trip makes sense." I'd come to the same conclusion. "But why would someone be expecting us back?"

"We're obviously both gainfully employed. And if we're not married to each other," he paused to grin at the look I shot him, "then we have spouses who are going to be waiting for us."

I'd considered the same thing, but my mind had come up with an argument. "We could have come from close by, though. We could be staying near here for some length of time."

"Right, but at some point, someone who knows who we are is going to notice that we aren't where we're supposed to be." He was right, of course. I just hoped it was sooner rather than later. The lack of memories was a distinctly empty feeling, and I didn't like it at all.

"This is so bloody frustrating!" I snapped. "It feels like the answers are just out of reach, if I could just..." I scowled at the grass under my feet. "Why aren't you upset?"

"You seem to be doing enough 'being upset' for the both of us." He was indulgently amused again, as though we were talking about missing pudding after dinner instead of missing the vast majority of our entire lives.

I rolled my eyes. "Bill-"

"Bill?" he questioned. I looked over to see his eyebrows raised in question.

"I don't know, you seem like a Bill. You're not uptight enough for William." I was getting a little flustered under his scrutinizing gaze. "You have an earring!"

"Right. Your name suits you perfectly, I think." He was teasing me again.

I scowled and lapsed into silence.

After a while, it started to warm up a little, and I banished the blanket with a flick of my wand. The hunger was pressing in on me, and my feet were starting to get a little tired of walking. We came down in elevation quite a bit; the path wound its way around what I assumed was the side of a mountain, to keep from being too steep.

We'd been walking for about two hours when Bill suddenly lifted his head and inhaled. "Wait a moment, I can smell something."

"Smell something?" I asked incredulously, but came to a halt beside him. I sniffed the air experimentally. Nothing.

He nodded. "Someone's cooking eggs."

"You can smell that?"

He looked askance at me. "You can't?"

I scowled again and didn't answer. I had developed a headache, a combination of the hunger and the cramps in my neck.

We kept walking and soon enough we came upon a cabin with a plume of smoke coming from the chimney. Walking closer revealed a wooden sign that read, "Warden." I exchanged a look with Bill and and knocked on the door.

After just a moment, a short, balding man opened the door. He took us both in, his eyes lingering on the sword. "Found one of the old props, did you? Don't tell me where, I don't want to know. Then I'd have tourists pestering me at all hours- 'Where are the props?' 'Why didn't I find one last time I was here?'"

I caught Bill's eye and he offered me the hint of a shrug. Prop? "I'm sorry, we seem to have gotten a bit turned around. Is there a map somewhere?"

The warden's eyes narrowed suspiciously. "Just up the road, you'll want the Visitor Information Center."

"Thank you." I gave him my best friendly smile and exchanged another look with Bill as we turned around, away from the door.

There was a road right in front of us. We started walking again. "Prop?" I asked him as soon as we were out of earshot.

He shrugged. "I don't know; all I know is that it left a pretty clean slice on my arm, and it's fucking heavy after carrying it for a few hours."

I nodded in commiseration and we kept going. Soon it was fairly obvious that we were in some sort of campground. People had tents, dogs, there were small campfires set up. Campers were just waking up for the morning, and the smells of cooking food assaulted us from all around.

"I wonder if one of these is ours," Bill said quietly, peering about.

I nodded slowly. "That would explain why we have nothing on us. Do you want to take a walk around and see if we can find anything that looks familiar?"

He shrugged. "Might as well."

We did a complete circuit of the campground and there was nothing that looked even remotely familiar. Hunger was starting to gnaw at my stomach again and I was growing frustrated. "This is ridiculous," I muttered to myself.

"Hey!" someone called.

I caught Bill's eye. "Are they talking to us?"

"Hey!" the someone called again. We turned towards the speaker- a friendly-looking blond woman. Bill was reaching for his wand.

She bustled over to us. "You can't pull that out here, this is a Muggle campground!" she admonished him in a whisper. "What do you think you're doing?"

"We're lost," I told her. "We seem to have misplaced our campsite."

"Portkey left without you, did it?" she asked sympathetically. "You British?"

My identification said, 'British Ministry of Magic.' "That's right."

Bill's blue eyes came over to me, but he didn't say anything.

"You here on vacation?" She smiled in a friendly way and nodded, continuing even though neither one of us had answer. "It's good to travel in the spring, before it gets too busy."

"Right," Bill agreed. "Look, can you tell us how to get out of here?"

"Our Portkey's set to leave in just an hour or so, if you want to take ours. Bit of a walk, of course, can't disappear in front of all the Muggles. It'll take us back to Conjury, though, and you can get where you need to go from there."

There was that word again. I looked a question at Bill and he gave a minute shake of his head, he had no better idea what she was talking about than I did. "Thanks," I offered. What was Conjury? Meeting this young woman had brought up more questions than answers, even if she seemed to know at least something about what we were.

"Right this way. I'm Mary," she introduced herself.

"Hi Mary, I'm Hermione."

"Bill," he added with an amused look to me, and I had to smile.

"Those are nice boots- dragon hide?" she asked him.

I stared at his feet for a moment, as did he, and then he nodded. They were nice looking boots, black and very shiny.

She led the way back to her campsite. I let her get a few steps ahead of us and turned to my companion. "You don't happen to know what a Portkey is, do you?"

He shook his head. "No idea. Nor a Muggle, is that some kind of magical creature?" He studied me for a moment. "You're British?"

I shrugged. "My badge said, 'British Ministry of Magic.'"

Once in the campsite, Mary greeted another woman, a pretty brunette. "Linda, this is Hermione and Bill. They missed their Portkey, I said they could come back to Conjury with us."

"Hi," she greeted us with a smile. "I'm Linda," she introduced herself. She was in the middle of packing everything in the campsite into one normal-sized rucksack. I frowned at it for a moment. "It's bigger on the inside," I observed.

She beamed at me. "Undetectable Extension Charm. Did it myself."

My stomach let out an embarrassingly loud growl and I could feel the heat coming into my cheeks.

Linda looked worried. "Oh, you poor things. Didn't you eat this morning?"

"Not, ah, not yet."

"Mary, can you get them a sandwich?"

Mary opened up a red rectangular plastic box and pulled out two sandwiches. She handed one to each of us. "There you go."

"Oh, no," I protested weakly, my eyes fixed on the food. "We couldn't take your food."

"Nonsense. It would probably just go to waste anyway, we're planning on eating out before we head home." She pressed the sandwich rather insistently into my hands.

"Thank you." I opened the small bag and ate it. Bill was already done when I took my first bite and he gave me a wolfish grin. I crumpled up the bag and slipped it into my pocket; there were no dust bins nearby.

"I think that's everything." Linda had finished pushing all of their belongings into her rucksack and took one last look around before nodding, satisfied. "You two ready to go?"

I nodded. More than ready. Maybe once we got to Conjury, whatever that was, we'd be able to find someone who actually knew who we were.

We started walking again. We let the two of them lead the way, as they obviously knew where they were going, and we didn't. "When we get wherever we're going, I'm going to put my feet up and not move for a week," I muttered to Bill.

He chuckled. "That's brilliant. After a hot bath and a plate full of steak."

I had to smile at that. A bath. A bath sounded wonderful. Maybe not a plate full of steak, but a cup of hot tea and maybe a book...

This path was kept in a lot better condition and it was a little easier to walk. In due course we reached a small clearing where an empty, rusting tin sat on the ground, somewhat pronounced in the lack of other litter.

It was, apparently, exactly what we were looking for. Mary and Linda walked over to it and, after exchanging another look, Bill and I followed suit. I didn't want to touch it, but it seemed like I had no choice. I crouched down beside it and gingerly rested one finger on the outside. Nothing happened. I opened my mouth to say something, and then everything shifted.

**A/N: Thank you for the reviews! *heart***


	4. Chapter 4

I landed on a small square of lush green grass, my elbows contacting painfully in an effort to keep my already-aching head from bouncing off of it; Bill was sprawled beside me. Mary and Linda didn't seem as affected as we were, both of them had kept their feet and Linda was giving us a rather amused smile. "Here we are," she said.

"Right," Bill said.

My head was spinning unpleasantly and it felt like there were rocks rolling around inside of it, colliding painfully with the top of my skull. "Thank you," I managed.

"Would you like to join us for some shopping and then lunch?" Mary asked politely.

I swallowed hard and gingerly lifted myself into a sitting position. "No, thank you." We had no money. Hopefully someone would be able to point us in the right direction of a 'Gringotts Wizarding Bank' or a 'Ministry of Magic.'

"Happy travels, then. Take care, you two." They walked off, hand in hand, leaving us on the small square of grass.

We were tucked away at the end of what looked like a cobblestone alley. Bill had pulled himself to his feet, and he offered his hand down to me. I let him help me up as well, and then I wobbled unsteadily, my free hand going to my head.

"Are you all right?" he asked, concerned. He shifted his grip to my upper arm, holding me up as I swayed.

I nodded, and then immediately regretted moving my head like that. "Fine. I just... need a minute." The world stopped spinning around me, and I relaxed. I hadn't realized that I'd clenched my jaw until it ached as I unclenched it, waggling it a little. "That was unpleasant," I said after a moment.

He nodded. "Are you up to moving?"

He still had his hand on my arm, and I pulled gently away from him. "Yes. We should look for your bank." From the noises that were coming from the open end of the alley, we were in some sort of shopping center.

"Right. Come on, then." He lifted the sword off of the ground, and we walked out into the main street together. It was busy; people were out on their shopping and socializing, bustling about without sparing us a second glance.

Almost directly in front of us was a large white building with the words 'Gringotts Wizarding Bank' emblazoned on a large sign in shining gold letters. "Well, that's convenient," I muttered. It made sense to have the bank quite close to where travelers would touch down; they could stop there first and then go about their business with money in their pockets.

We walked through the rather ornate front doors to see a couple dozen short persons with long fingers and pale skin. They didn't quite look human. We exchanged a look.

Bill fished his identification out of his pocket, and I followed him over to the nearest unoccupied person. "Hello, I'm wondering if you can help me." He slid his identification across the counter.

The short person- not human- had his glittering eyes fixed rather pointedly on the sword in Bill's hand. "Are you a Curse-Breaker?" the being asked, peering at the identification that was laying on his desk. "Not one of ours, I think. Have a seat, I'll have someone out to see you." He waved an arm off to our left, where a row of rather uncomfortable-looking chairs were set up against the wall, and then turned back to whatever he was doing like we'd already left. We'd very clearly been dismissed.

Bill took his badge back, and we went over to the indicated seating area and sat down. "A Curse-Breaker? Well, that sounds heroic and dashing," he said with a grin, and I had to smile as well, shaking my head.

"Your modesty knows no bounds, does it?" He chuckled and I continued, more seriously. "That makes a little more sense, I suppose, than a bank teller." He looked a question at me. "If I'm a solicitor, we could be looking for cursed objects for a legal case or something."

He considered what I'd said for a moment before nodding. "Reckon you're right. Too bad there wasn't a giant 'Ministry of Magic' sign right close by."

Despite the continued pain in my head, I was actually starting to get a little excited. If this was where Bill worked, then maybe we would be able to get our memories back and go home.

A black-haired, bespectacled man was walking towards us. He took one look at Bill and shook his head. "You certainly don't work out of here," he told Bill abruptly. Bill was pretty distinctive with his long red hair and numerous scars. "What's the name?"

"Weasley," Bill answered, his eyebrows drawn down in a frown.

I could feel his frustration and I matched it with my own. This made absolutely no sense. "Excuse me," I broke in, and the man looked over as if noticing me for the first time. "Can you tell me where the Ministry of Magic is?"

"Wellington, of course." He wore an odd expression on his face. "You two don't sound local, you from Britain?"

I nodded hesitantly, my heart sinking. This wasn't Britain? This was a big problem.

"Let me floo them." He frowned. "I don't know if anyone will still be there at this hour, we might have to wait until this evening. I'll be right back."

He left the same way he'd came, disappearing behind a small door that I hadn't noticed earlier.

"Where the fuck are we?" Bill murmured.

I had to agree with the sentiment, if not the language. "Apparently not home."

He nodded, his blue eyes filled with helpless frustration. I'd yet to see him really upset, but this seemed to unsettle him a great deal.

I rested my hand on his knee. "We'll figure it out," I reassured him quietly, and he nodded.

"I know. I'd just expected to find answers here, and there aren't any."

"Yet," I amended for him. "We just got here, and that man said he was going to call home and figure out what's going on."

Bill shrugged.

In short order, the black-haired man came back out again. "Bill Weasley," he addressed my companion, and it was a relieved nod that he received in return. "You're supposed to be in Wales right now."

I saw Bill frown again. "I'm assuming this isn't Wales," I observed out loud, mostly to myself, but the other man smiled and answered me.

"New Zealand. I'm David Wallace, I'm the head of the Curse-Breakers here. They said that the British Ministry of Magic may have sent you here to follow up." He was evidently expecting an answer. "Did they?"

We didn't have an answer, but he seemed to take that as an answer. "One of the items must have acted as a Portkey, then. Not to worry, they said they'd be in touch with the British Ministry and send someone out here to collect you. Is that the artifact?" He gestured to the sword Bill was clutching tightly. "May I?" At Bill's nod, he pulled out a pair of gloves and pulled them on, then took the sword. After a moment, a rather unfriendly look came over his face. "It's still cursed," he accused the tall redhead beside me.

"Is it?" Bill took out his own gloves and put them on, then took the sword back.

"It's inert, but who knows how long it's going to stay that way. You'd better come with me, we can't have cursed artifacts out here in the open." The suddenly very disapproving David Wallace motioned impatiently for Bill to stand up. "Not you," he told me coldly, and I sank back down from where I was halfway to standing. I watched the two of them walk through the door.

Left on my own, I looked around the bank. It wasn't terribly busy, there were only a few people talking to the short beings. I watched as a woman followed the other being away through another door.

My headache was getting worse. I leaned back against the wall and closed my eyes, willing the pain to stop. I must have dozed off, because the next thing I knew, someone was nudging my knee. I opened my eyes to see Bill standing there, his normal good humor restored.

"It was brilliant, 'Mione," he told me.

"'Mione?"

He looked at me with a good-natured sort of exasperation. "I don't know, you seem like a 'Mione." He was parroting my words from earlier that morning. "At any rate, I don't know how I knew how to do it, but I took the curse off of the sword. It was amazing."

I had to smile at his enthusiasm. The pain in my head had abated somewhat. "Probably the same way I knew how to build up a fire."

He nodded. "They're going to hold onto it here for us until whoever it is comes to collect us from Britain. They said it could take a while, apparently it takes some time for communication between the Bank and the Ministry."

"A while?" I echoed dubiously. "What are we supposed to do until then?"

"Have a holiday. Wallace said he'd have some of the galleons from my account in Britain transferred here, and they gave me an allowance against that. Apparently this sort of thing happens from time to time, they have a protocol for it."

"Do the Curse-Breakers usually lose their memories?" I asked.

He shrugged. "I didn't think it was a good idea to mention that at this time, in case it's not supposed to work like that." He leaned a little towards me. "I don't entirely trust the goblins."

"Goblins?"

He gestured to the small beings who worked at the bank. "Goblins. Wallace didn't say anything about it either, you'd think that would be something he'd bring up. Apparently, though, there's an inn not too far from here, we can get a room and something to eat."

That was the best news I'd heard all day. I stood up and we went back outside. Now that we were no longer in a rush to get into the bank, I was able to take a good look around. Conjury was, apparently, a little town. The street we were on was lined with various shops and businesses, but beyond them I could see the roofs of houses and smoke from chimneys that spoke of residential living.

"Do you mind if we share a room?" he asked. When I hesitated, he looked over at me. "Oh, come on, you've already slept on me." He chuckled when I responded to his teasing with a glare. "We'll get a separate bed or something, but I don't know how long we'll be here, and I don't want to empty my vault paying for two rooms."

I sighed. That was a reasonable request. It wasn't fair to insist he use his own money to pay for a separate room for me, especially since neither one of us knew how much money he had at his disposal. The Ministry of Magic would probably pay him back- at least I thought so- but if it was going to take 'a while' to collect two people from a foreign country, who knew how long it would take for them to settle a monetary debt.

The inn was a pretty little building, very clean and bright. White on the outside, brightly-flowered windowboxes. The pub downstairs was mostly empty, there were a couple of people having a cup of coffee. I left Bill to sort things out with the landlady and found a table, tucked away in a corner. After a couple of minutes of animated conversation, he came over to where I was and sat down opposite me. "It's settled. We've got a room for as long as we need it, and she's bringing us some breakfast. We can go up after we eat. Would you like the first bath?"

"You go ahead." I thought for a moment. I wanted to see if I could find somewhere to get something for this headache that I was entirely tired of. "I wonder if they'd let me borrow money against my balance like they're doing for you."

"No, I already asked. You seem like the kind of person who wouldn't want to be reliant on someone else like this, both out of pride and because you don't want to be an inconvenience." Well, he was certainly right about that. "They will have some money transferred directly here from your account, but that can take a day or two as well. I'm not worried about it, you'll pay me back." There was that wolfish grin again. "After all, I know where you work."

I had to smile, too. "Fine. Thank you. While you're in the bath, I'm going to get out a bit, see what I can find around here."

"Take some money and see if you can find yourself something to help your head." I opened my mouth to protest, but he cut me off. "Don't argue with me, I know you're in a good amount of pain- you're even more pale than normal."

"Thank you." Our food was brought over just then and we tucked in eagerly.

**A/N: Thank you for the reviews! I am on the hunt for a beta...**


	5. Chapter 5

It was two days before I was able to have some of my own money transferred from England. Bill refused to let me pay him back right away. He said it made more sense to wait until we got back and we knew exactly how the monetary situation was going to settle out. He had a good point- if something happened and he went through the allowance he'd been given, then we would need to rely on what I had.

By a week after that, we still hadn't received word from the British Ministry of Magic. It was frustrating, just waiting. We did some shopping and saw all of the local sights, but it was a very small town and there wasn't a whole lot going on. I ended up getting some books that had some information on memory loss, but I didn't really find a whole lot. It was fascinating reading, though, and I spent a lot of time with my nose buried in various books. Bill did, too. I hadn't really taken him for a research-and-books type, but he devoured the books almost as voraciously as I did.

I did get my own room, but we seemed to spend most of our time together, anyway, a lot of it spent sitting in companionable silence and reading. We were stuck in a strange country where neither one of us really knew anyone else. We quickly became fairly good friends. And Bill loved to tease me.

"I'm not finding anything." I snapped the book shut and almost tossed it down onto the desk I was sitting at, glaring at it.

"I'm not really surprised by that, you didn't find anything the last two times you read that." He was stretched out on my bed, one hand behind his head and the other holding his own book open in front of him.

I rolled my eyes and impatiently pushed the chair back to stand up.

"I saw that." He hadn't looked up, his blue eyes were still trained on the pages in front of him. "What about that other book you picked up?"

On my most recent foray into the bookshop, I'd found something tucked at the back entitled, 'The Golden Trio: How Tarnished Are They?' which was just absurd, because real gold doesn't actually tarnish. But it had my name on the back, as well as someone who shared Bill's surname. The picture on the front was the face of a grimy-looking young man with a peculiar scar on his face and a pair of glasses worn over clear green eyes. Neither one of us recognized him, but that wasn't saying much at this point.

"It's complete rubbish. I got two pages in it and I had to give up. It's the most sensationalized piece of nonsense I've ever had the displeasure of reading." It was sitting on the side of the desk, and I picked it up and tossed it angrily into the bin.

He did look up, a distinctly amused look on his face. "That bad?"

"It starts off with some drivel about the 'Chosen One' and how he's this tragically heroic figure that was caught between the master manipulations of a doddering, but calculating old fool- isn't that a bit of an oxymoron?- and the terrifying ancient power that killed his parents and threatened to wipe our very existence from the planet."

Bill's eyebrows raised up and he grinned. "But you're in it. Don't you want to read about who you are?"

"Not in that book. I'll probably be either some vapid damsel in distress that exists solely to get rescued by the 'Chosen One,' or some slag that threatens to ruin everything with my vagina." I threw the book another glare. "'Rita Skeeter' sounds like some sort of insect that carries tropical fever, anyway."

He burst into loud laughter. "I almost want to read it to find out which it is."

"Help yourself." I nudged the bin towards the bed with my foot.

"I'll pass." He studied me for a moment. "I don't think anyone who came into contact with you could take you for a damsel in distress, though. You're very... capable."

"Soul-crushing vagina it is, then. Excellent." I rolled my eyes at the book and started tidying up the room. There was a cleaning service that came and did it once a day, but I usually felt better about doing it myself. I got to put things where I wanted them instead of how other people wanted them. That was the main reason I liked having my own room, I didn't have to worry about what Bill wanted to do. I felt so helpless, being stuck out here and not knowing who I was. "I just wish we knew who we were. And not some sensationalistic nonsense about people who are so exaggerated that they really don't exist."

He watched me moving around the room for a moment, book laid face-down across his chest to keep his page. "We could be newlyweds on a honeymoon." He was coming back to this more and more often lately. Always the same half-teasing tone, the glint of amusement in his eyes.

"It would explain the different names on our identification..." I said, then shook my head as I trailed off. He'd been on about it enough that I was actually starting to consider it. "That's ridiculous. Why would you bring a cursed sword on our honeymoon? And this doesn't really seem like the type of ring I'd be interested in." I held up my hand over my head to display the object in question. It was embarrassingly large. It was gaudy, it was ostentatious, it wasn't at all to my taste. "I'd pick something that was understated and didn't look like it should be pulling my body down on one side from the weight of it. This thing is practically a paperweight."

"So why are you wearing it, then?"

"I don't know. I would assume because someone I cared about gave it to me." I looked over my shoulder at him, one eyebrow raised in challenge. "Do _you_ really have this bad of taste?"

"Bad taste?"

"Have you seen this thing? It should have its own moon." I turned back to stacking my books on the desk and I let the top one hit the pile with a little extra force. "Whoever gave it to me obviously either doesn't know me well enough to know what I'd like, or just doesn't care. Either way, that doesn't speak too highly about my romantic partner."

He chuckled. "Or it's a family heirloom. Maybe whoever gave it to you was pretty excited to have you as a part of their family. I think it says more about you than your 'romantic partner'- do you think you'd shackle yourself to someone who didn't know what you liked or didn't care?"

That made too much sense. I scowled, but after a moment I had to stop, the urge to smile was too strong. "Stop making sense!" I snapped, laughing. Now I was being ridiculous. "Really, though. Shackle myself? Is that how you view marriage?"

"Unhappy marriage, sure. Stuck forever with someone you don't like sounds pretty miserable to me, and a lot like prison. Happy marriage, though... I'm a fan of happy marriage."

I took the top book back off of the stack and sat it down on the desk, flipping it open. I was more looking to have something to do with my hands than actually wanting to read it again. I didn't want to look at Bill. I knew what I would see in his face and I just didn't want to see it.

"You know," he said after a stretch of silence. "Family's pretty important to me." He paused. "I may not know who they are, but they're important."

I sighed and snapped the book shut again. "Why, Bill? Why are you so stuck on this?"

The bed creaked, he was getting up. I refused to turn and face him. He was the only person I really knew here and I didn't want to say something that would wind up with him not speaking to me. Although, that was starting to look like not such a bad idea.

"It is a lot of fun to rile you up, Hermione Granger."

I rolled my eyes, but I could feel the heat coming into my cheeks and spreading down my neck. "You need to find a different hobby."

"Why's that?" I hadn't heard him move across the room, but he was suddenly right behind me. His voice sounded from above the back of my head, and then I could feel the heat radiating from his body. He was a lot warmer than anyone else I'd come into contact with.

"Because you're being ridiculous."

"There's that word again." His hands came around me, settling on the edge of the desk on either side of me. "But we've done this before." He moved into me so that my back was pressed up against his chest. He was right. We _had_ done this before, or something very like it.

"You can't remember your family, but you can remember us doing this?" It was hard to make it an accusation, considering I was in the exact same boat as he was, but I sure tried.

"Mm." I felt the sound, deep in his chest, almost a purr.

"There-" My voice was too breathless. I cleared my throat and tried again. "There are any number of innocent reasons we could have done this." That was a little better, but there was still a quaver that I didn't like. I closed my own hands over the edge of the desk, gripping so tightly that my knuckles turned white.

"Any number?" His voice had deepened and was almost a physical caress. A man's voice shouldn't be allowed to do things like that. "Name one."

I couldn't come up with anything. Then again, my mind seemed to have turned to mush. He was so close, and he smelled amazing. His hands were large on the edge of the desk compared to mine, with long fingers- but rough, like he worked with them. I closed my eyes. "You're wearing cologne." I regretted it as soon as I said it. It meant that I'd been paying enough attention to him to notice.

"Just a bit. Your scent is maddening. I've been trying to escape it for days, but you seem to be everywhere." I felt him move his nose into my hair.

I pushed his arm out, away from me, and it fell to his side. I moved quickly away from him. "You're in my room, Bill. Of course my scent is everywhere." I snatched up my wand and left the room. I wasn't sure where I was going to go, but I needed some fresh air, and I needed to be away from the almost-intoxicating smell of him.

Being pressed up against him like that had sparked remembered sensations of being pressed up against a tall redhead. Not actual memories, not really, but the fleeting feeling of familiar sensations. Pleasant sensations. The kind of sensations that only came with an intimate sort of contact.

I gulped eagerly at the clear air. There was nothing out here that smelled like pine needles and snow, nor the lingering essence of the cologne he'd chosen. I had to do... Something.

The town was, of course, very small, and my options on where to go and what to do were pretty limited. I briefly debated just walking out of town and just walking, but I had literally no idea where I was, or how to find my way back from wherever I ended up. And I wanted to stay close in case the British Ministry finally sent word. It had been a week and a half, surely they would send word soon.

I scanned the row of shops lining the streets. I wasn't sure what I was looking for, but I was looking for something. I didn't want to go back to the bookshop, I'd practically lived there recently. I wasn't hungry, I wasn't thirsty...

And then I found something. Remembering the feel of Bill's nose as it nudged through my heavy mane of hair, I set off down the street at almost a run, my eyes fixed firmly on my destination.

I pushed the door open, and a little bell jangled merrily. "May I help you?" the woman at the front counter asked politely.

"Yes, I want to get my hair cut. Is there anyone available right now?"

**A/N: We're back! :D I'm going to be updating this for the Long Haul Competition III, so there will be weekly updates (until it's done)! Thank you for the reviews- Gimana Nanti51, all will be revealed in time... :D**


	6. Chapter 6

The woman who'd cut my hair had first argued with me about it, and then asked if I was sure, too many times to count.

I was sure.

At least I was to start with. About halfway through, I started having second thoughts, but by then it was too late. My head was markedly cooler and lighter, and I thought maybe I could quite like it once I got used to it.

I wondered idly if I would regret it when I remembered who I was. I suspected that the me who came equipped with the life-long experiences and memories of being me wouldn't quite appreciate it. After all, the me with all of my memories had left it growing out for quite some time.

I paid and tipped the woman, and then went back outside. The haircut had taken awhile, I had a lot of hair, and the sun was a lot further across the sky than it had been when I'd gone in. It had to be close to dinnertime, my growling stomach seemed to agree. So I walked back up to the inn.

I kept running my fingers over the tips of my hair. It was short. Very short. Short enough that it had lost its riotous curl, and was just spiky on top. And I'd talked the hair-dresser out of a fringe.

Bill was already tucking into dinner when I entered the large common room of the inn, and his eyes widened and his eyebrows shot up his forehead when he caught sight of me.

I walked over to the table and sat down. "Well?" I prompted.

He stared at me for a moment. "Looks very different, doesn't it? Are they even going to recognize you when the people from the Ministry come to collect you?"

He was teasing me, so it must not have been that horrid. I told myself that I didn't care what he thought. I was lying. "I don't know, I think they'll have too hard of a time trying to see past your ego to even notice that my hair's a little different."

He grinned wolfishly. "My hair is prettier than yours now." He gave his head a toss, the effect only slightly ruined by the fact that he had his long hair gathered into a queue at the nape of his neck, and I rolled my eyes. "Are you going to eat?"

"I think I'd better." I eyed up his plate that was, as usual, heaping with extra helpings of meat. "Did you leave any of the pig for the rest of us?"

"Someone's feeling a mite snippy tonight." He gave me a pointed look.

I didn't have an answer for that. I got up and moved over to the bar counter to order myself something to eat. I was being a little extra snippy towards him. I didn't really have a good reason for it, either. There was a reason, it just wasn't a good one.

When I made my way back to the table, he was looking at me expectantly. "Well?" he prompted after I'd reseated myself and still hadn't said anything.

"Well, what?"

"Is there a reason for your added bite, or is that merely a side-effect of your charming new hairstyle?"

"It's a response to your teasing, I'm just beating you to the punch." The real reason was that I'd felt something when he'd pressed himself against me earlier and I was very conflicted about it. It was easier to feel snappish than it was to feel conflicted.

"Nothing at all to do with what happened earlier in your room, then?" Why did he have to be so perceptive?

"You mean, you crowding in on me like you were checking me for lice?"

"Lice?" His eyebrows lifted, he had absolutely no idea what I was talking about.

I seemed to have more memories- or at least more knowledge- than he did. That was interesting to note. "They're little insects that- nevermind." Discussing lice at dinnertime didn't exactly seem like it would aid digestion.

I thought the distraction had successfully derailed his train of thought, but his next question proved me wrong. "Couldn't come up with an innocent reason for us to be in a position like that?" He grinned briefly before lifting another forkful of meat into his mouth.

I squared my shoulders and drew myself up to my full height while sitting. "For your information, I thought of plenty." In between worrying about what the woman at the salon had been doing to my hair, I had racked my brain for answers to that particular question. "You could have been helping me hang a shelf, or reaching something high up for me, or holding up a table to get the leaf in."

"So why wouldn't I just stand beside you?"

That was where the theories tended to fall apart. "Because there wasn't enough room?"

"Nice try. I'm not buying it."

My food was brought over just then, and set down in front of me. I turned my attention to it, there was nothing confusing on the plate in front of me. For a time, the only sounds were of us chewing, and Bill cutting through his rare meat.

I looked at the juice left on his plate and shuddered. "What's with the barely-cooked meat, anyway?"

"This is what tastes good? I don't question your obsessive love with green things."

"It's a balanced diet!" I was done eating. I pushed the plate away and left the table, paying the landlady on my way up to my room.

I wasn't exactly full, not really, but sitting across from Bill while he was determined to tease me and bring up... that thing that happened, was just too much. And he still smelled good.

I ran my fingers through my hair, shaking my head. I needed to stop. This was ridiculous. He was married, and I was at least engaged, and tormenting myself like this wasn't headed anywhere good.

I snatched up one of my books and threw myself down on the bed to read. I got through two and a half sentences, and realized that this was the pillow he'd been sitting against earlier, and it smelled exactly like him. I drew a deep breath through my nose, wrapping myself in his scent.

"Hermione, you're being stupid," I told myself firmly. "You're..." I trailed off. I couldn't exactly lecture myself on my age when I had absolutely no idea how old I was. I hurled myself out of bed and started pacing the room. "Too old to be carrying on like a lovesick schoolgirl." That was a safe bet.

There was a knock at the door, and then Bill pushed his way in without waiting for me to acknowledge him. He closed the door behind him and leaned back against it, watching me range around the room. "Worked up?"

I glared at him. "I didn't say you could come in."

"You didn't say I couldn't either."

A glance over at him showed me he was quite amused by what was happening in front of him, and I narrowed my eyes to glare at him. "What is so damn funny?"

"Such language, I'm shocked!" He was grinning again, laughing at me.

I stopped in the middle of the room and turned to face him, my arms folded tightly in front of me. "Well?" I prompted.

"You. Instead of accepting the facts that are in front of you, you're working yourself into right hysterics. You look half a minute away from throwing things."

The thought had occurred to me. "What facts? There are no facts! There's nothing, except that damn sword, and a memory with more holes than Swiss cheese."

"You want facts?" He pushed off of the door and started stalking towards me, an unfamiliar glint in his eye. Something in the back of my mind identified it as 'predatory.' "We're here together. There's a big, shiny rock on your finger, a wedding band on mine. We've spent time together in a rather intimate position." He stopped just in front of me, and it took more effort than I wanted to admit to not to take a step back. I refused to give him the satisfaction. "I reckon we've got to be married."

"Why's that?" I asked. With him so close to me, I had to crane my head back to look up into his face.

His hand came behind me and combed through my hair before settling to cradle the back of my head. "Because I've been wanting to do this ever since I woke up with you settled atop me." His lips came down and captured mine.

All of my arguments were just gone. His stubble scraped a little against my skin as angled his head a little better. There was something very familiar about kissing him, about reaching my hand up to run through his own hair, about bracing my other hand against his shoulder for balance. Something felt off, too, something felt not quite right.

I parted my lips, and tongue slid boldly against mine. The memories weren't complete. That's what it was, I decided as his other arm came around my waist, holding me tightly against him.

His mouth slipped away from mine to travel along the underside of my jaw. "Stop thinking," he murmured. "I can almost hear you."

"I-" Whatever I had been going to say was completely gone when his mouth fastened over the pulse point on the left side of my throat. Instead what came out was a low moan.

His hand came from my hair and over the curve of my backside, down my thigh to grip it and lift it up around his hip.

I felt like I couldn't get close enough. I was off-balance, leaned back in his arms to give him better access to my neck, my shoulders, and I clutched at him almost desperately. He lifted me against him and moved until I was pressed back against one of the bed post, and my hands were free to move him. I slid them over his shoulders and onto his chest, making quick work of his buttons. Too many buttons.

He didn't seem to have the same patience. He grasped each side of the front of my shirt and pulled, tearing it. There was a strength in his hands beyond what his lean muscles seemed to display, and I shivered at his intensity.

He moved quickly, and soon we were naked together on my bed. He settled over me, moving deep inside me until I was mindless and the noises I was making were hoarse and unintelligible. He was talking, his voice almost a growl, and the things he did with his hands...

It seemed an eternity later when he collapsed on the bed beside me, both of us covered in sweat and breathing hard. "I'll move my things in here tomorrow," he panted.

"Umm," I managed, making him chuckle.

Night had fallen, and the the full moon was spilling through the window, bathing us in a silvery light. "I should close the curtains," I said, but it seemed like entirely too much effort.

"Just leave them. I like the moonlight." He rolled onto his side towards me, reaching out to draw me against his body. "Besides," he murmured, nuzzling the hollow just below my ear, "it's too far away."

He was insatiable that night, waking me up with his hands and his mouth to take me again and again.

By the time the sun came up, I was sore and stiff, and I'd hardly had any rest. It seemed an easy decision to lie in the circle of his arms, my back pressed against the lean expanse of his chest, and forego breakfast in favor of sleep. I thought again about closing the curtains, but I somehow never made it out of bed.

**A/N: Thank you for the reviews! K8-Amelia- LOL no, no pixie cut. More like Alice Longbottom's hair in the picture in movie!Ootp.  
**


	7. Chapter 7

We stopped paying for two rooms. It really just didn't make any sense. He moved all of his things into my room, laughing easily when I told him that I liked being able to put everything in certain places. The days wore on without any news from the British Ministry of Magic, marking precisely three weeks since we'd turned up in the middle of a cave in New Zealand. I was on a first-name basis with the man who ran the bookshop; he ended up hiring me on to help him sort through the new books that came in. But I always made sure to be back to the inn to have dinner with Bill in the evening. Even if he insisted on eating barely-cooked meat.

I was falling in love with my husband. It seemed a little backwards, falling in love with someone you were already married to, but he made it easy. He was sweet, despite the teasing. He was funny, he was intelligent, he was tender. And, of course, he was amazing in bed.

We got into the habit of taking a walk around town after dinner, too. Bill got a little restless with too much inactivity. It rained infrequently, but it wasn't unpleasant. I would just put on a cloak and the weather didn't ever really seem to bother Bill.

The locals were starting to know us on sight; our walks often took us from the street lined with shops into the residential section of the small town. We would stop and chat for a few minutes with some of them, when the weather didn't keep most people indoors. It was actually a really nice holiday- even though we didn't know what we were taking a holiday from.

We set out walking that night, hand-in-hand. It was drizzling just a little, really more of a fine mist than actual rain. "We need to keep doing this when we get home," I said. "Wherever home is."

"That would be nice." He paused to greet someone we passed. Conjury's Shoppers' Row was emptying out as people went home for dinner. I often wondered where all these people went, what their towns looked like.

"I hope we can get our memories back. I'd like to know how we met."

"I imagine I fairly swept you off your feet. Dashing, charming, just a hint of danger. You probably couldn't resist me."

"Danger?"

"Well, the earring, of course, and I had to get these scars from somewhere. Reckon I came in and saved you from certain peril."

"Or maybe I saved you," I countered. "There you were on the brink of death, and then I came along and dispatched whatever gave you those marks and heroically saved your life."

"Maybe," he admitted with a grin. "With your, what was it? Soul-crushing vagina?"

I had to laugh, even as I swatted at his shoulder. "Right. That's why _I'm_ in that book. You were the damsel in distress, and then I came along."

"Damsel, is it? I'll show you damsel!" His hand slipped from mine, and then his long fingers were moving through my cloak, tickling me until I was pulling at his hands and laughing and gasping for breath.

"Stop!" I managed, and he stopped, still grinning.

"Not much of a rescuer if you can be defeated by tickling." His hand slipped under my cloak, into the small of my back, and pulled me against him.

I reached up and draped my hands behind his neck. "I think you're the only one who does that, Bill. I can't imagine someone who was willing to give you those scars would stop and tickle me."

"And ruin such a beautiful face?"

"Well, you certainly are charming. Your face isn't ruined, though. It has character." I gently urged his head down his lips met mine.

"Evening Bill, Hermione."

I pulled away until we were a more respectable distance apart, slipping my arms from around him so that I could take his hand again. "Hello, Charlotte."

Charlotte ran the cauldron shop, and she was probably on her way home for dinner. "How long have you two been married? You're just like newlyweds!"

Bill and I exchanged a smile. "Not long," he said. "How was business today?"

"Not so bad. School will let out soon, and all of the graduates will need new cauldrons for their new jobs. And the post-school repairs, of course. It'll pick up, it always does. You two just out for a stroll?"

"I have to stretch my legs..."

"Maybe if your legs weren't so long, they wouldn't need to be stretched all the time," I told him, and I got a grin in return for my cheek.

Charlotte gave us an indulgent smile, but then her eyes were focused behind us. "He's new." She lifted her chin to gesture at the man she was talking about. She'd told us that she knew most of New Zealand's wizarding population on sight. Everyone needed to buy a cauldron at some point. "Maybe someone from your Ministry finally came."

We both turned and looked. I tried not to get too excited, the last time someone had thought that, it was just a tourist.

"He does look like he's waving at us, doesn't he?" Bill observed, watching the brilliantly-haired man walking towards us.

"I'll say goodnight, then. In case I don't see you again, send an owl." She gave us a smile and then started to walk the short distance away to where the gate to her front garden was waiting for her, closed. She was undoubtedly going to watch what happened through the curtains, she did love a bit of gossip.

"Goodnight, Charlotte." I turned my attention to the approaching man and answered Bill's question. "He does. He looks a bit like you too," I replied.

"You reckon?"

"Yes. Tall, thin, red hair... A cousin, maybe?"

"Could be." He was grinning, though, and he squeezed my hand. He was getting a little excited too, it was hard not to.

The young man walking towards us seemed excited, too. "Bill!" he shouted, pulling my husband into a familiar hug. "Thank Merlin!"

I pushed my fingers through my short hair and looked up at the red-haired stranger who was exclaiming enthusiastically at my husband. He was maybe an inch taller, and this close, the resemblance was uncanny. There was no way that this new man wasn't a family member. "Hello," I greeted him.

He looked at me and his eyes grew very large. "Mione?" he breathed. And then he was on me, pulling me into his arms and kissing me as though his life depended on it.

I dropped Bill's hand and brought my arms up between us to push him away, and then suddenly there was a loud bang and he was on the other side of the street.

"Now," Bill said evenly, a thick current of anger in his voice. "I don't know who you are, but you'll not touch my wife like that again."

"Your wife?" The stranger looked between us, eyes bigger still like he couldn't believe what he was hearing. "YOUR WIFE?" he thundered, springing to his feet. "Your wife is waiting for you in tears in Shell Cottage. This is my girlfriend!" He lunged at Bill and then they were locked together, fists flying.

Charlotte came back out of her house, coming to stand beside me. "I've called the Aurors, Hermione." Her propensity for gossip was probably a good thing. The Aurors would show up shortly and straighten everything out. Still, though...

I moved my wand, and the two flew apart. Another flick, and the red-haired stranger was bound in ropes. I wasn't sure exactly what I'd done, but it seemed to be the right thing to do. He spluttered and cursed. Other people were coming out of their houses too, drawn by the noise.

I went to Bill. "Are you all right?" His cheek was reddened, already starting to darken with the promise of a bruise. His lip was split, too, and I pulled out a handkerchief to dab at it.

"Fine," he told me, staring hard at the man who looked so much like him, who'd definitely come out worse in their melee.

There was a crack, and then another one, and an official-looking man and woman came towards us. "What's this all about?"

I spoke up. "This man assaulted me, and when my husband tried to defend me, he attacked him." I wrapped my hands around Bill's waist, holding him close, trying to soothe him with my presence. He was beyond angry, he was furious that another man had touched me. His arm came around me, and he buried his nose in my hair.

"I saw it," Charlotte spoke up from behind us. "It was just as she said."

"We'll just get you all to the Ministry to sort this out," the official-looking man said with a frown.

Not too long after that, we were sitting together on some sort of wooden bench. We weren't in trouble, they emphasized, but since the man who'd assaulted me was apparently an Auror from the British Ministry of Magic, things were a bit complicated.

We were in an empty office, Bill had his arm around me and I was leaning against his shoulder. I didn't know what had happened to Charlotte, I just hoped they'd allowed her to go home after she'd given them a statement. It was long past dinnertime.

"What if he's right?" I asked, my voice seeming over-loud in the quiet room. The question had been screaming to get out for the past little while.

"I don't know," Bill admitted, pressing a kiss to the top of my head. "I just... I don't know."

"Do you think he's right? I mean, why would he come halfway around the world if..." Bill had a wife. Bill was married to someone who wasn't me. Even the thought of it broke my heart. I loved him. And he loved someone else? The thought made me sick. I knew I should pull away from him, from the shelter of his arm, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it.

"Relax," he soothed, reaching up to rub his thumb along my cheekbone. "It'll work out."

The door opened, and I jumped. "You're... Harry Potter." He was cleaner, of course, he looked older, but there was no mistaking the face that had stared up at me from that horribly-written book.

He looked down at us for a moment, then pulled over a chair to sit down, facing us. "Do you know me?" he asked, not unkindly.

"No. There was a book with you in it, but it was absolute rubbish." I shook my head. "I could only read the first page or two; apparently you're quite the tragic hero."

He grimaced. "Right. Well, I'm here to bring you both home." He looked between us, and seemed on the verge of saying something before he stood up. "I have a Portkey. We're going to travel back to England, and then we're going to get you both checked into St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries."

"What about... The other man?" The question had to be asked. If he was an Auror, we could be in a bit of trouble. Then again, he'd assaulted me first, and Bill had just defended me.

"Ron?" At my frustrated shrug, Harry Potter grimaced again. "Right. He's fine, he's assured me he's had worse scraps with his brothers. He's got a bit of a temper and he's... Well, we'll get this sorted. He's gone back ahead of us. I told him that he needs to wait to visit with you." He paused, his green eyes looking between us. "He was worried sick about the both of you."

Bill and I exchanged a look, and the expression on his scarred face was grim. "When are we leaving?" he asked.

Harry Potter checked a rather battered gold watch. "Five minutes. The local office has been incredibly helpful, they've had all of your belongings brought here." He stood up and looked at us for a long moment, his expression unreadable. "Shall we?"

I pulled away from Bill and stood as well, feeling him rise beside me. Our hands came together, though, seeking solace in each other when the world seemed just on the verge of falling apart. I wasn't even worried about the upcoming Portkey travel, so much as I was worried about what this would mean for us, and the feelings I'd developed.

**A/N: Poor Ron. Thank you for the reviews! :D Coming up next- What's the deal with the memory loss, anyway?**


	8. Chapter 8

Britain was... Cold, rainy. We landed in a field somewhere, and there were other Aurors waiting to usher us quickly to what turned out to be St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries. We used floo powder to travel from one fireplace to another, and then we were quickly bustled up to what was called the fourth floor, but not before we heard the cacophony of a lot of questions being asked at once, and the blinding flash of what seemed like hundreds of cameras. The press. Apparently this was a big event.

I was ushered into an isolated room, where I was given a scratchy hospital gown, and then... Left there. I paced, I looked out the window what was likely supposed to be a calming meadow scene. I wasn't calm. I had no idea where I was, I had no idea what was going on, and I appeared to have been completely forgotten.

The white floor was smooth and shiny, immaculately clean. The ceiling as well, and the walls were a pale yellow. Two beds, identical, and a curtain that could be stretched between them that was currently open. I had a lot of time to study the details of the room.

After a while, there was a brief knock at the door, and then Harry Potter came in. He looked at me for a long time, and I looked back, arms folded tightly in front of me. The two beds were between us, but it somehow didn't seem enough. He didn't look threatening, though, or angry. He just looked... tired. Tired and relieved. His expression made me relax slightly, and when he spoke, his words made me even more at ease. "I know you don't remember me, 'Mione, but we're friends. I'd like to stay with you if that's all right."

I gave him a brief nod. He was right, I had no idea who he was- but there was a distinct possibility he had answers for me. "What's going on? Why have I just been left here?"

He sighed. "I can't speak to what's going on right now. I can tell you what happened- or what was supposed to happen, anyway."

I nodded and moved around to sit on the edge of the bed facing him. It was too firm, more fit for sitting on than sleeping on anyway.

"Bill is a curse-breaker. Usually he works for the goblins, going into tombs and ruins and breaking the curses on the artifacts found there. There was an old tomb discovered in Wales, and the Ministry needed someone to go out and remove two cursed artifacts there were known to be there, a sword and a ring."

"All right." That explained why Bill was there. "So what was I doing there?" I tried not to snap at him. He was being patient and kind with me, and none of this whole mess was his fault.

"Because he's not a Ministry employee and this was Ministry business, a Ministry representative needed to be there. Normally it would have been someone from the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes, but because you know Bill, you volunteered to go, just to be an extra pair of hands. The Minister of Magic is a friend of ours, so he agreed to it."

I nodded. That made a certain amount of sense. Friends with the Minister of Magic, though, that seemed a bit... Surreal. "So then what happened?"

"Keep in mind that the only people who are going to be able to tell us the details of what actually happened are you and Bill, right?" When I nodded again, he continued. "The curse on the sword was a memory curse. We knew it was because Muggles had broken into the tomb, and were turning up with memory loss. He should have been fine, though, and he was experienced enough to keep you safe as well." He paused, and a sense of frustration came over him. "Something went wrong. Something obviously happened with the sword to cause the two of you to lose your memory, and we're assuming that it also acted as some sort of Portkey."

"And as soon as we get our memories back, we'll be able to tell you what happened."

"Exactly."

I nodded again. "So what do you do, Harry Potter? Why are you here? And why is no one else here?"

He frowned. "I'm an Auror as well, but I'm here right now as a friend. You don't... You don't really have family. Not blood relations, anyway. You're like a sister to me, though, and I thought you might appreciate the company."

"Thank you," I said after a moment. I did appreciate it. Even though I didn't know who he was, the idea that he was there to support me was comforting. "Why hasn't anyone come to examine me?"

"Bill was the..." He paused, like he was searching for the right words. "I'll put it this way. Bill was the senior member of the operation, so he needs to be debriefed first. They keep telling me someone will be in shortly, but we're in a hospital, so that could really mean anything."

"Is he... all right?"

"Who, Bill?" His green eyes turned sympathetic as I nodded. "They're taking good care of him." He paused, just a bit awkwardly. "Is there anything I can get you? I noticed you were building yourself a little library down there, do you want something to read? Are you hungry at all?"

I shook my head, fighting to keep my looming misery at bay. "We just ate. We take a walk after dinner."

The awkward silence stretched between us. "I brought you something," he said after a time. "This is one of your favorite possessions." He took a very battered book out of his pocket and came over to hand it to me.

I looked down at it. _Hogwarts: A History_. It was certainly well-used. "Thank you. Hogwarts?"

He settled on the bed next to mine and looked over at me. "That's where we went to school. That's where we met, actually. Well, on the train there. We were eleven."

"How old am I?"

"23."

I stared at the man I'd known for apparently the last twelve years, and willed myself some spark of recognition. It seemed like there was a shadow of a memory just out of reach, but I just couldn't... I had an idea. "Did we hug? Were- are we on hugging terms?"

He stared at me for a moment. "Yes. We're pretty close."

I stood and walked the short distance to him and, after a hesitant moment where his eyes behind his glasses were like two green question marks, I leaned over and put my arms about him, resting my head against his shoulder. There, that sense of familiarity. I'd definitely done this before. I clung to him, and I could feel the tears starting to seep between eyelids I'd squeezed shut.

"Are you... all right?"

I nodded. "We've done this before."

"We have." He sounded a little bewildered, but his arms came around me, real and solid. He drew me down to sit next to him and simply held me while tears slipped out. "You remember things you've done?" he asked when the tears stopped.

"Not exactly. They're not memories, not really. It's more a sense of my body remembering familiar sensations."

"Muscle memory? Like how you remember to ride a bike even if you haven't done it for years?"

"I... guess?"

He chuckled. "I looked up that sort of thing when we were talking about something having 'flesh memory' a while ago. Hopefully someone can come up with answers for you soon."

There were twelve hours between England and New Zealand, which meant that while Bill and I had just had dinner, the day was just beginning where we were now. Still, though, it was close to midday by Harry's watch when someone finally came in.

A white-haired man with a green robe and a very no-nonsense manner came in after a while. He came around to stand between the ends of both beds. "Miss Granger," he greeted me. "I am Healer Merryweather."

"Hello." I was still sitting with Harry and we were looking over the book he'd brought together, while he told me of different things we'd done while we were in school together. I wondered if I should get up, but the Healer didn't seem to expect me to.

"We've discovered what you've been afflicted with. The curse that you're currently under has erased all of your memories, as well as all of your knowledge of the wizarding world." I didn't think I looked impressed enough with his diagnosis, because he frowned. "We believe it was set to prevent Muggles from accidentally finding out anything about our world, should they happen upon it."

He seemed to expect me to say something. "Well, it's very effective." That also explained why I remembered more than Bill, if I knew more about the non-wizarding world.

That seemed to appease him somewhat. "Quite. We were successful in restoring Mr Weasley's memories to him, and I'm quite confident that we'll be able to do the same for you."

I stopped myself from asking him how Bill was. "What do I need to do?"

"It's quite complicated." He sounded very impressed with himself, to the point that Harry hid a smile behind his hand. "You'll need to drink a potion, and then I will cast the memory-restoring charms on you myself."

"When can we get started?" I wanted- I needed- answers.

The Healer looked over at Harry. "Mr Potter, if you would kindly leave the room?"

Harry made to get up, but I grabbed his hand tightly. I had a very strong suspicion that I was going to want him there. "I want him to stay."

Merryweather looked back and forth between us for a moment, and then sniffed. "Very well." He produced a potion from somewhere, I wasn't exactly sure where, and gave it to me.

It glowed. It was a dark-blue color, and it smoked faintly. It wasn't hot to the touch when I took it, but the taste was... It was hard to keep it down.

After ensuring that I wasn't going to vomit it back up, Healer Merryweather had me lie down on my own bed. I kept tightly ahold of Harry's hand, the familiar sense of it seeming to be the only thing that was going right in that moment.

"Close your eyes," the Healer instructed.

"Right." I did as he bade, my grip tightening on Harry's fingers. I heard him moving above me, and then he started intoning words in what sounded like a strange language...

Pictures flashed through my mind, images to go with the sensations that I'd felt, and other images... A cat, my parents, the whole Weasley family... I felt like I was whirling in them, like they were spinning my body around, making me dizzy. My head started to pound, and every moment that passed made me feel more and more like I was going to be sick.

And then... It stopped. The motion stopped. The headache and vertigo remained. I opened my eyes, looked past the Healer into Harry's hopeful green eyes. "Oh, _fuck_," I breathed.

**A/N: Poor Hermione. Thank you for the reviews! It's interesting to see the different reactions you all have, and thank you for sharing them with me! I'm debating on writing one more chapter/epilogue thing, but other than that I'm finished writing this story, so I'll be posting it more frequently so that I can get it all out there and completed! Next up: What does Fleur have to say about the whole thing?  
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	9. Chapter 9

Everything. I remembered everything. I remembered Bill teasing me, I remembered the dinner invitation, I remembered the entirely innocent scenario that had ended up with him pressed against my back with his arms on either side of me. I remembered holding the sword, I remembered the pile of debris shifting and Bill yelling at me to let go as the sword glowed brightly...

I remembered Ron. "Oh, shit," I breathed. Ron. We'd been together since our kiss during the final battle. It hadn't all been sunshine and roses, we both had a temper. We worked on it, though, we made it work. We'd just bought a house together, we'd been starting to talk about a future together that involved me changing my last name and smaller versions of us, hopefully with my brains and his hair.

And now...

"I'm going to assume from your reaction that the spell worked." Merryweather sounded so smug, so immensely pleased with himself.

The idea that he was delighting in my mental turmoil made me want to hex him. "It worked," I gritted out. "My head is throbbing." And my heart was completely split in two.

"Someone will be along with something for that shortly, along with lunch." And that was that. The Healer turned and left the room, leaving me alone with Harry.

I could see the sympathy in his eyes, the grimace as he took in my expression of horror. "'Mione..."

I started crying again. I couldn't help it. I cried for me, I cried for Bill, and Fleur... And Ron. I'd hexed Ron. I'd hoped that if I was going to have to lose Bill, the return of my memories would eradicate all of the feelings that had sprung up for him. That, however, was not the case. Was it even possible to love two men at the same time? Apparently, because my heart ached when I thought of either one of them. "Harry, this is so fucked up."

To his credit, he didn't comment on my language, even though it wasn't the sort of thing I usually said. "Yeah." He sat down on the bed beside me and slipped his hands behind my back, pulling me into a sitting position. He held me against him, letting me cry into his shoulder. I clutched at the sleeves of his shirt, holding him there desperately. He didn't say anything, just held me.

At last, the tears seemed to slow. I sat back from him and wiped my eyes on the sleeve of the hospital gown. "Where's Ron?" I asked when I'd calmed down enough for conversation.

He thought for a moment, one hand still on my back. "He's... I think he's at The Burrow. Either that, or he's at work. Do you want to see him?"

"Yes. No." I shook my head. "No." What would I even say to him. 'Sorry, I slept with your brother? Sorry I hexed you when you kissed me?' Thinking of that moment was incredibly painful. I still felt violated, but now I felt like I shouldn't feel violated because he was Ron.

I wanted to see Bill. How was he doing? How was he coping with the realization that he'd attacked his brother in my defense? And how was he dealing with the realization that he was married to someone else entirely?

Fleur... I wanted to apologize to Fleur. I wanted... I wanted to run away. "I don't suppose it would go unnoticed if I got on the next plane down to Australia." I sighed. I noticed his look, and I shook my head. "I wouldn't really run away from this. I couldn't. That wouldn't be fair to any of us. But was that Rita Skeeter in the lobby?"

He grimaced. "Of course. The missing war heroine was big news. She speculated that it was some outrageous affair." When he saw that his words made me wince, his face fell. "I'm sorry, I didn't think. Of course it wasn't..."

I looked down at the ring I was still wearing, the massive diamond that I was sure had caused a large part of the problem. It sat there, winking innocently in the light, and I twisted it off my finger. "I think this belongs to the Ministry. I don't know how long they're going to keep me here, can you see that it gets where it needs to go?" I held it between us on my open palm. I never wanted to see it again.

He closed his hand around it. "Of course." It went into his pocket. I'd never hated an inanimate object before, but I hated that ring.

"What happened with the sword?" After all the trouble it had caused, I hoped it was somewhere in the bowels of the Ministry.

He pushed his hand through his hair and took a deep breath. "That's... We're working on it. Apparently the goblins down there are saying that they thought that Bill had surrendered it to them, and they're not too keen to give it back."

I rolled my eyes, then immediately wished I hadn't from the way it made my head feel. "That's not what happened. One of their curse-breakers suggested we keep the sword there so we wouldn't have to worry about carting it around town." I shook my head. "Goblin-made. Right." I remembered how much trouble that had caused us with the Sword of Gryffindor.

"Exactly."

I toyed with the edge of the blanket. "Someone's going to need to take a statement of what went wrong, aren't they? Proper protocol. Can... Can you do it? Or Neville, if you're too close to the situation." My voice sounded wooden, stilted. There was no chance that there wouldn't be rumors about what had happened, and I knew there were people just waiting for me to do something wrong, somehow, so they could jump on me about it. Harry wasn't judging me, and Neville wouldn't.

"I'll do it." He patted my arm reassuringly. "Just let me know when you'll be coming back to work and I'll come up to your office, yeah?"

"Thanks, Harry." I laid my hand over his and squeezed it, hoping he understood that I was thanking him for more than just agreeing to take my statement.

"You'll let me know if you need anything, right?" He caught my eye and waited until I nodded before he looked satisfied. "They'll be feeding you soon and I should check in with..."

"Ron," I whispered. "How is he?"

"Upset. Very upset. He won't talk about it, he just said that you told him that you and Bill were married. The Aurors down there let me know what happened." His eyes searched mine. "How are you with what happened?"

"I still feel like he attacked me. I didn't know who he was when he kissed me, and... Now I feel bad about it, but I can't erase what happened."

"I know. It's... We'll get it sorted, right? I'll come back later." He kissed the top of my head before he stood and left the room.

Lunch and a draught for my headache came 'shortly,' and a nurse came in 'shortly' after that to check up on me and let me know that they were going to keep me for at least a few days to make sure that there were no unexpected side-effects. That was one thing that didn't change between Muggle and wizarding hospitals- their definition of "soon."

It had been a long day, and very emotionally draining. I fell asleep after that, my body and my mind seeking respite from the day.

They roused me for dinner, though, which was fairly uninspired- another similarity to Muggle hospitals- and after that I had another visitor. I'd left the door closed, and there was a soft knock on it before a very familiar blond witch came in. She looked at me for the longest time, just staring at where I was sitting, propped up in the bed, silence stretched taut between us.

Her eyes were guarded, like she was afraid of what I would say. She'd been crying too, and she looked exhausted.

I spoke first. "I don't expect you to forgive me, but... I am sorry." I took a deep, shaky breath. "More sorry than I'll ever be able to say. If there was any way to undo what I've done..."

She stared at me for another moment, and then came over and sat where Harry had, on the opposite bed. "There is nothing to forgive." Her voice was so quiet I almost had to strain to hear her.

"I..." I had no idea what to say. I just looked at her, silently imploring her to go on.

"Bill told me what happened. The man that you were... involved with, he was not my Bill." She looked very sincere in what she was saying, and her voice became louder, more sure of herself. She sat up straight and squared her shoulders, suddenly the picture of confidence.

I watched her for a moment. "I'm not entirely sure what you mean."

"He was _Bill_, of that there is no question." She waved her hand, as though dismissing a suggestion that he wasn't. "But he was not _my_ Bill. He was missing all of the essential things that make him my husband. To his mind, we did not marry- we had not even met. How could he be..." she paused, seeming to search for the right word. "...unfaithful?" at my nod, she continued, "to a woman he had not met?"

I stared at her in silence. What she was saying made a certain amount of sense. It didn't make me feel any better, but she was the one who'd been wronged, my feeling better about the situation wasn't important.

She shrugged. "He said that the first time..." She licked her lips and swallowed before going on. "It was the full moon. He has a hard time controlling his urges on the full moon. The werewolf curse, it affects more than he tells most people."

I remembered looking up through the open curtains and seeing the round silver circle before he had pulled me against him. I wanted to get rid of those memories so badly. _Obliviate_... It was temping, but my forgetting what had happened wouldn't take away the fact that it had happened. The people around me would still have to live with what had gone on, and my forgetting it would just make it harder for them.

She smiled, although the expression didn't quite reach her eyes. "And you, you are a pretty witch. Your hair like that, it suits you. _Tres belle_."

I stared at her for a moment, somewhat taken aback. "Thank you, that's... Thank you." I wanted desperately to explain myself. "I just... He looks-"

She cut me off with an abrupt motion of her hand. She needed to not hear me explain myself, and in that moment, that was what was more important. "They- we- are your family too, the Weasleys. I have told them not to be angry with you. You were not our Hermione, and he was not my Bill." She looked at me for another long moment, there was no missing the fierce determination- almost a challenge in her eyes. She was prepared to fight for him if she had to. And then, without another word, she got up and left.

I was surprised to learn that I had any tears left. I did, though, and they fell freely from my eyes to the blanket in front of me. Fleur was going to make this work. It didn't surprise me. She'd stayed with him through the werewolf attack, she stayed with him through his family's disapproval and his mum's not-so-subtle attempts to get him interested in other people.

She was a strong woman, I had to admire her. I didn't know if I could have stood by Ron's place like that if our positions had been reversed. Knowing that someone you were going to see regularly was in love with your husband, and he was in love with them.

Maybe... Maybe he hadn't shared that little detail with her. There was no question of it being not being true, logic didn't follow that I wouldn't have lost my feelings, but he would. Maybe he didn't tell her that his heart was breaking.

Or maybe he had. And maybe she was a better woman than I would ever be.

**A/N: Thank you for all the reviews! Anonymous- I hope you can find something that suits you better! Next up... What does Ron have to say about this?**


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